azurelunatic | Fic Preferences: Relationships

If there's a relationship in the story that isn't at least hinted at in canon (for example, Ron and Hermione may at least attempt to date in canon, Harry and Hermione may at least attempt to date in canon, Hermione and Viktor Krum did go to that Ball together in canon) then I would prefer to see it get started before I watch the pairing going at it hot and heavy.

I mean, the author doesn't have to go ahead and write the story of how they got together, although that is often nice. Even a "They had been a couple ever since a stray curse had forced them to snog for hours. After they'd been un-cursed, they decided that they rather liked it, and kept it up," would do. A little implausible, but no more so than the rest of it...

But established relationships where I don't know the background information tend to bore me, especially in a PWP where the words do not immediately seize me by the gonads ~~and strife~~ and/or attention. Harry/Draco? They're all mushy over each other? Back up a second here and hold on -- last I saw the smug little ferret was lording it over the school and especially Harry, and then getting his pants hexed off on the train. Not romance material. Unless you tell me that Draco has reconsidered his political position because he's just realized that hangin' with Moldy Voldie is going to ruin his surprisingly mature good looks (as opposed to making him look good by contrast) and has made a peace with Potter and one thing led to another and now, ta-da! Romance! -- then it's going to severely jar my credulity and I'm not going to follow the fic that much.

Same goes for, say, Mulder/Scully. Unless you make with the explaining pretty fast when you've got an established relationship, I'm going to leave the fic in a hurry because while I want to believe that they belong together, unless someone shows me how it could happen, I'm going to stay very, very skeptical, and that's going to ruin my enjoyment unless you distract me with a lot of plot very fast.

Also, unrelated -- careful with some of your imagery. "... A cesspool of spiralling emotions..." is not something I'd really want to associate with what you're undoubtedly meaning to be beautiful lovemaking. The rest of the fic is shiny, though, and wonderfully cute, just that one *facepalm* image. Nothing like raw sewage to jar a sex scene.

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(you know.. with you i tend to ignore the fact that it is about fanfic, and just read for the *point8 because they make sense..)

the last one was prolly meant to be "whirlpool" or some such. i would not be able to stop myself from tracking down the author and asking if, in fact, they wanted to change that...? for the sake of my bleeding eyes.

it is becoming an unfortunate trend in writing on *all* levels for people to make jumps where they should build bridges. i think this is because people have gotten lazy and forgotten that when writing one much suspend OOC knowledge and assume none on the part of the reader. too many are just jumping in figuring that, because so many of the scenerios, etc. are so common, people will make the leap themselves.

and then, of course, some is just bad writing.

Since the rest of the fic was so well-written, I figured that it was likely to be whirlpool or some such myself, and did in fact e-mail the author with same note, careful to include what I enjoyed most about the fic first.

I think I also forgot to turn off the sig on my e-mail, so I wouldn't be surprised if the author herself turned up at this post (she's on LJ, though she doesn't know me personally) ...

I must say, a good careful beta reader is a gift from the gods, just for moments like that, and the avoiding of same.

And, I must say, thank you for the fine compliment on my writing. I like to write things that apply more universally than the subject I'm writing them on, but when I widen the scope of the essay to make it more universal, I wind up sounding more pompous than I really intended.

So, thanks. :)

heh. i am actually a fan of well-executed pomposity. i consider balanced arrogance an art form. one that is fast become a Lost Art, for want of people who can back it up with something more than inflated ideas of their own intelligence.

to be honest, i see certain key words that indicate fanfic references are about to happen, and generally my eyes glaze over and i scroll past on auto-pilot. i am rabidly anti-fanfic in general, and anti-slash to be sure.

but i believe i have mentioned that you are the exception to alot of my normal "rules". i really do like the way your points about writing and certain trends apply to more than fanfic. some of them have actually brought up underlying habits/behaviors that come into play in discussions my roomie and i have about fic and writing in general. she and i have been having this ongoing discussion for about a year now. we like to analyze just why people write certain things, and the effect it has on culture (and writing) on a larger scope.

i think you'd like these discussions, because some of what you touched on here would fit right in. i really do think that some of these habits come from a laziness that spreads when people get too comfortable writing withing a fandom, and don't spend enough time writing original stuff from scratch. and most people don't notice the gaps, because they have gotten used to *reading* within those same templates, and their brains fill it in automatically.

maybe you should write up some "don't forget" type guidelines within the fanfic circles, pointing out certain tenets of Good Writing that are getting *lost*.
i have a habit of doing this sort of thing, in a big way. nothing is sacred to me. i have written harsh crits of Shakespeare for breaking certain rules without making up for them in other ways. (most of his tragedies are shite. Hamlet is the exception.) i have talked english profs out of teaching certain of the plays after pointing this out.

good writing is good writing. bad writing is an affront to nature. heh.

I grew up on Feynman, and later Asimov. Does it show?

And yes, fill-in-the-blanks does happen in lots of fandom stories. You can really tell it when you are reading a fanfic that isn't of a fandom you follow, and you know that you're already supposed to know the characters/situations... but you don't.

Well, I don't read RW/HG period, but...somebody really said that? CESSPOOL?

Some unfortunate fanfic author did let that one slip in. Poor lamb.

But established relationships where I don't know the background information tend to bore me, especially in a PWP where the words do not immediately seize me by the gonads and strife and/or attention.

Oh, I just look at it as -- I've read enough stories where they're together, that I can pick (theoretically; I don't actually try to) a universe where these two characters are in character, and assume it's in that one.

Unless of course they're acting totally out of character for themselves, irrespective of the relationship's existence itself. That just bugs me and I quit reading. If you're going to have Draco being sappy or Harry being a wimp, for instance, I want the justification for it; neither are that way in canon. I can presuppose the development of a relationship, because I've seen so many different plausible ways for it to happen, but do NOT make them act out of character without explaining how they got that way! :D

*nods*

I suppose I would do that more often if one of my distinct kinks wasn't watching a relationship develop.

In general, I much prefer novel-length stories, so it's really not an issue. But in a PWP, I can grant the author a little leeway. :D

I've read enough stories where they're together, that I can pick (theoretically; I don't actually try to) a universe where these two characters are in character, and assume it's in that one.

I've been thinking for a while that fanfic tends to form little worlds similar to old-style oral storytelling. Everyone knows that Odysseus is cunning or Grandpa Stonebender is best at everything or Paul Bunyan is big -- the stories are interesting ways of rehashing and retelling interesting ground, not of making something completely new.

Yes, but even those oral traditions, you tend to have the backstory summed up, even if it's in a few brief bits to remind you of same. After all, you've got to start somewhere when running into them.

I think one of the marks of a good yarn is that you don't have to know the characters coming into it. I know that the BabySitter's Club books did something like that (but a very, um, icky job of it) and introduced all the characters we should have already known at the beginning of the book.

It needn't be quite that blatant, but I hate it when a fic jumps in as if I've already memorized all the canon. A good fic, actually, should be stand-alone enough so that it can hook you in to the canon, instead of making you say, "Who are these people?"

And everybody knows that Draco may well be gay, and often wears leather trousers. Draco's father is not nice to poor little Malfoy Junior. Things like that. The word that bounces around is "fanon".

Fic Preferences: Relationships

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